AIBU to think we should be funding this BS?

Saying that the value in academic research is subjective is a standalone statement in itself. I mean, it's illustrated on this very thread. Some people call it word salad created by publicly funded researchers in the "soft subjects". Others argue that it contributes to human understanding, that it resists the creep of technology with its attendant decrease in attention span and ability to concentrate, that it exposes historical power structures that are relevant today, and so on. Whose view is correct? Are there objective criteria we can apply?

Why wouldn't all art criticism be valid? Creators of art, as with anything else, don't have the final say on how its audience reads and interprets that art.

I mean if you just dismiss everything as subjective then where do you go from there? Does that mean that all art criticism, for example, is equally good/bad as it's all subjective? That's all I'm saying.

The relevance of my final sentence is that the obvious argument in this debate is that the hard sciences are not subjective, so I was including a possible counter example.

I think there are certainly important issues to consider here, but just saying, "it's all subjective" doesn't really advance the discussion. In my opinion.

I struggle to see the relevance of your final sentence although I suppose it does give something away about your position.

I'm not sure what you mean by "what do you suggest". What do I suggest about what?

Academic research should be decoupled from the idea that only income generating activities have value. Research for research’s sake, to advance knowledge, to satisfy or generate curiosity is a human instinct. You don’t know what or when new understanding will come to fore and what it will lead to eventually. That’s a good thing.

interestingly it’s usually only research into things like gender, race, sexuality which attracts criticism. Yet they’re aspects of humanness that we all experience and are affected by.

So what do you suggest? A huge amount within the arts, humanities, languages and social sciences is subjective. But rigorous scholarship should go at least some way towards determining what is worthwhile and what is total bullshit.

Although these days even biological sex is apparently subjective, so who knows...?!

This is true, but who gets to decide what constitutes ‘bullshit’?

Fit for what purpose? Who decides ?

Maybe the sector is in trouble for good reason?

Maybe its not fit for purpose when uts churning out a load of research thats pointless?

Leaving aside the obviously inaccurate aspects of your post ("sociology is paid for by us, the taxpayer" - really?), you could argue for the withdrawal of funding of absolutely any field of study using the same basis. And there's definitely a paper to be written about your choice of the word "defund" with all its connotations of emergent neo-fascism.

Sociology is paid for by us the taxpayer. Other departments like medicine or engineering may well attract independent funding. But who on their right mind would pay someone to concoct that word salad?
Defund Sociology now.

I think there are some valid issues here that warrant research. But research doesn't need to become completely inaccessible through language or structure. You get the feeling they have identified words that trigger research grants in that title. Should it be funded? Well maybe those that are paid and qualified to assess these things should be left to decide. Plenty of research historically would not have been thought that beneficial at the time but ended up adding to a body of knowledge that benefits society. So crack on, it's only one small area of research.

I lost the will to live 3 lines in. No idea what its about but it comes over as an unintelligible pile of horse shit.
So no, we shouldn't be funding it 🤔

Again though, that's subjective.

There's a difference between indiscriminately branding so-called "soft" subjects as bullshit and recognising that there can indeed be bullshit research within an otherwise worthwhile area of study.

Definitely research to be done there!

Ha yes, and the sociology of people feeling aggrieved about it and then telling themselves (and others) that they are personally paying for it

But essentially op, you might like to look at the arts and humanities as areas that are both threatened by and a threat to the dominant socio-economic classes and systems. Because, strip away the subject matter of the paper you cited and it's about who holds power historically and currently and who is disadvantaged by that power. No wonder the proponents of "austerity" sought to minimise or eliminate the so-called soft subjects within early education! They don't want us realising what they're up to! Anything could happen if we understood the game...

Looking at it like that, investment in humanities is an excellent use of money. Ironically enough, it might even lead us to question why we see everything in terms of cost effectiveness!

‘soft subjects’ is again a real culture war term. Goes to show how much linguistic study is needed for a start.

Yes it does raise some interesting questions about what counts as "BS" and whether there can be an objective definition of that!

What kind of agenda is it to go actively looking for ‘bs’ in ‘non scientific academia’ sociology and education?

Since when is thinking in the humanities ‘BS’? The sector is in enough trouble and human thought is under enough threat without people stoking culture wars because they’ve got a bit of time on their hands.

I don’t think ‘we’ are funding ‘this bs’ so yabu for making a nonsensical argument
But I also don’t think there is anything wrong at all with sociological research or in general with the furtherance of knowledge and understanding.

I think I'm missing the link here between publicly and individually funded research. Universities receive public funding (although as a pp said, they contribute significantly to local and national economics) but that funding isn't conditional on research being approved on a case by case basis by funders. And do we know how this paper/its author have been funded?

I get the annoyance when reading something opaque. I've questioned many times why people can't just say what they mean without using 100 words where one would do! On the other hand, I think we owe it to ourselves as a species not to allow ourselves to stop thinking and trying to work things out. After all there are billions spent by tech companies trying to get us to do just the opposite, to have our attention span wrecked by 2 minute videos and doom scrolling. Isn't it important to make a stand, to keep producing, reading and thinking about complex ideas and concepts? In that light, funding is relatively unimportant because it becomes about more than money. It's a battle between the powerful and the rest of us.

I don't think you understand university funding, at all.

The academic who you chose to link to is obviously an international student, therefore is likely paying eyewatering fees to study in the UK (maybe 30k a year), plus paying rent in the UK, VAT, tax on any earnings.

So if you're worried you're personally funding this research let me reassure you that you are a beneficiary of, not a contributor to, Cambridge's huge wealth.

There is crap work in sociology and good work in sociology. Same as most other fields - good movies get made and crappy movies. It is hard for outsiders to judge what is good, so generally academia makes judgments about itself. And you can be sure sociologists will be looking hard at this and working to improve.

I once read that a PhD thesis should aim to be so mind-numbingly boring and incomprehensible, that the assessor(s) will soon give up and award a pass, since they just can’t face ploughing on to the end.

(Obviously this will not apply to two family members who worked hard for their PhDs 🙂)